zaterdag 27 mei 2017

Saudi Arabia releases video on National TV teaching husbands how to beat their wives

May 17, 2016 - 1:53 PMNews Code : 754798Source : AWD NewsLink:The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.

The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.

The video is believed to have been aired in the country in early February, 2016. The Kingdom’s government is said to have approved the video, and that is why it was given airtime on national television.

After airing the video in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government released the controversial video in the United States via the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, in April 2016. Women activists group describe the video as nothing less than infuriating.

The content of the video features the doctor who is said to specialize in therapy; Khaled Al-Saqaby teaching men how to ‘properly’ beat their wives if their [wives] disobey them.

According to Al-Saqaby, husbands should not immediately attack their wives, but should discipline them ‘properly’ first. He then makes it clear that in marriage, there is nothing like equality, and that men should take charged and rule the home.

In an event where women disobey their husbands, Al-Saqaby teaches in the video that the men should follow the steps below in making sure that the women are corrected.

“The first step is to remind her of your rights and of her duties according to Allah. Then comes the second step – forsaking her in bed.

The third step, beating, has to correspond with the necessary Islamic conditions” before taking action. The beating should not be performed with a rod, nor should it be a headband, or a sharp object.

Instead, husbands should use a ‘tooth-cleaning twig or with a handkerchief’ to beat their wife. The wife will feel that she was wrong in the way she treated her husband,” says Al-Saqaby.

Ending his controversial teaching, Al-Saqaby says his teaching of how to beat wives is not exhaustive, and that sometimes, men can beat their wives without following his steps when the women go to the extreme by disobeying their husbands.

He also blamed the women for provoking their husbands, expressing shock that some women are ‘stubborn’ to the point that only beatings can bring them to order.

“In addition, sometimes a woman makes a mistake that may lead her husband to beat her. I’m sad to say there are some women who say ‘Go ahead, if you are a real man, beat me’ She provokes them,” he adds in the video.

Critics of the video say, although some of the teachings Al-Saqaby espoused in the video concerning how husbands should treat their wives are found in the Holy Quran, they were used in a context.

They accuse Al-Saqaby and the Saudi government of being selective with the verses of the Holy Book in order to satisfy their own interest.

The author Matt Agorist of the Free Thought Project has chronicled some verses from the Quran and Hadith to highlight how a religious text can be used to incite peace or violence; that Islam prohibits or promotes men beating their wives.

The Hadith is the record of the sayings and conduct of the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad during his lifetime. The record was recorded by his disciples and those known to be close to him.

According to Mr Agorist, Al-Saqaby teaching on the subject should not be taken serious because it is full of his own interpretations, in order to serve the interest of the ruling class of the country.

Some women groups have also called for the United States government to condemn the video, as it denigrates womanhood. But neither the State Department, which is responsible for international relations for the country, nor any government official from the White House, has commented on the controversial video.

This is not the first time the United States has turned a blind eye on happenings in Saudi Arabia. Early this year, Saudi Arabia embarked on an exercise of beheading people who speak against the dictatorial policies of the country’s ruling class. 47 people, including a prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Bakir al-Nimr, were beheaded on January 1st, 2016, for embarking on anti-government activities.

This sparked huge tension in the Islamic World. The United States never commented, or issued a statement, on the beheadings.

The leaked documents reveal the British government is sending $723 million in “aid” to Somalia while admitting it is “certain” to be used to fund terror groups ISIS and Al-Shabaab.

The Daily Mail reports that the document, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, outlines strategy until 2020, and is marked ‘Official Sensitive’ on every page.

In a detailed ‘risk register’, it rates the probability of taxpayers’ funds being ‘misused or diverted by listed terror groups or criminal gangs’ as ‘certain’ and ‘likely to grow in the next six to 12 months’ as tensions rise ahead of elections.

It also accepts there is a similar ‘certain’ risk rating – highlighted in red – that consultants will be unable to travel to insecure areas to monitor spending.

‘This is so alarming,’ said one Minister. ‘The public will be deeply concerned that their hard-earned cash is literally being handed out to terrorist organisations.’

Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North, said he planned to table questions to Ministers. ‘Taxpayers will be horrified to find their money is going to terrorists at a time when police forces here are having budgets cut and officers are losing their jobs,’ he added.

‘The public will be deeply concerned that their hard-earned cash is literally being handed out to terrorist organisations’. Pictured, Al-Shabaab fighters in Mogadishu

Other leaked papers expose that Britain is still sending bilateral payments to India worth £70 million this year, despite pledges to end such transfers last year amid concerns over funding a nation with its own aid agency and a sophisticated space programme.

They also show Britain is giving cash to countries, including major aid recipients, despite high risks of corruption and concerns over the effectiveness of projects.

DFID officials admit that despite international diplomatic efforts in Somalia led by former Prime Minister David Cameron, large parts of the country are insecure and that the al-Shabaab group ‘appears to have had a resurgence’.

Officials set out tactics for mitigating such problems, including use of ‘trusted partners’ on the ground.

But the shocking revelations will fuel concerns that British cash is being misspent as billions are diverted into fragile states, worsening rather than alleviating problems.

Earlier this year, there was fury among many MPs after this newspaper revealed that British aid was ending up in the pockets of Palestinian terrorists.

There have also been cases of aid being ‘taxed’ or stolen in conflict zones by groups such as al-Shabaab, the fanatics behind the 2013 slaughter in a Kenyan shopping centre.

A leaked UN report has warned of ‘high level and systematic abuses’ by Somali government officials who have passed weapons to the group.

ISIS: The revelation comes in a confidential 41-page business plan drawn up by DFID.

In recent months, Islamic State has become more active in Somalia, even briefly capturing a town in the semi-autonomous Puntland region six weeks ago.

The 18 draft and final business plans cover 16 countries, the continent of Africa, and climate change strategy.

For all the discussion of value for money, poverty reduction and risk protection, they make alarming reading as the British aid budget soars to £16 billion by 2020.

From Mozambique to Malawi, officials admit there are high chances of corruption. In Pakistan – our biggest aid recipient, getting £375 million this year – analysts admit that human rights and space for civil society are on ‘a downward trajectory’.

DFID accepts there is a risk that its ‘programme delivery will be associated with unintended, negative consequences’.

Ethiopia, the second biggest aid recipient, is receiving £332 million, with much of the money funnelled through government systems.

Officials say this is ‘acceptable’, although ‘opposition political parties, independent media and formalised civil society organisations are constrained’.

DFID sources said there was always risk working in conflict zones: ‘We have robust plans to mitigate against this but, on occasion, losses will occur. We are rigorous in investigating any concerns relating to funding.’

The source added that they were investing in India’s poorest people, of whom there are still 290 million, in line with previous pledges to generate growth and jobs.

Trillions of pieces of refuse get trapped by natural ocean currents, or gyres, at five locations, causing a dance of debris for hundreds of thousands of square miles. While these gyres, geographically removed from civilization, hold much higher concentrations of trash than other regions of the ocean, they’re evidence of a growing problem humans have mostly ignored since we embraced widespread plastic use 50 years ago. But now, researchers are ringing a warning bell: Our reliance on cheap, disposable stuff is smothering the seas, and it’s bound to get worse.

Marcus Eriksen, a co-founder of the conservation group 5 Gyres, likens this growing horror to smog that covers cities like Los Angeles and Beijing.

It’s an apt description. Over time, a plastic item in the ocean breaks down into many tiny particles, known as microplastics ― so many, in fact, that if you were to stand on the bottom of the ocean in the middle of a gyre and look up, the water overhead wouldn’t look clear, Eriksen said.

“What you’d see are these massive clouds,” Eriksen said. “Clouds of micro- and nano-plastics stuck in the ocean’s gyres.”

Perhaps the smoggiest of these gyres is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, hovering a few hundred miles north of Hawaii. Reports describe it as a floating island of trash twice the size of Texas,so dense you could walk across it, and so vast you cansee it from space. But such descriptions are misleading, scientists say.

“The name ‘garbage patch’ is a misnomer,” wrote researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Programin 2012. “There is no island of trash forming in the middle of the ocean, and it cannot be seen with satellite or aerial photographs.”

Rather, it’s more like a swarm of microplastic bits.

CREDIT: NOAA MARINE DEBRIS PROGRAM

Marine debris accumulations in the North Pacific Ocean.

At last estimate, there were some5.25 trillion pieces of plastic trash floating along the surface of the ocean. Waves, salt and UV radiation from the sun will eventually break down these items into microplastic particles, each less than 5 millimeters long. If you tried to account for not just the large pieces of plastic bobbing about, but also the particles, you’d be looking ata number close to 51 trillion, or “500 times more than the stars in our galaxy,” according to the United Nations Environment Program.

By now, plastic bits are so pervasive they’ve spread to some of the furthest reaches of the globe. Just last month, scientists said ocean plastic has started washing up in the Arctic for the first time.

“It’s on every beach, found in sediment worldwide, a small particulate that’s diffuse throughout the water column,” Eriksen said. “It’sa plastic smog throughout the world’s ocean.”

And, like its airborne namesake, this oceanic haze has not been harmless.

Plastic, It’s What’s For Dinner

Recent studies have linked the growing amount ocean plastic to a host of health impacts in marine creatures.

Dramatic photographs taken in 2011 were among the first to show such devastation: rotting albatross carcasses on Midway Atoll, a remote island in the North Pacific right in the middle of the region affected by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The images showed more than a dozen bird skeletons stuffed with colorful bits of plastic. Their stomachs were so full of the material that scientists said the animals died from malnutrition.

RICK LOOMIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Albatrosses have become a bellweather species for the plastic pollution problem, ingesting the material and dying en masse.

Researchers have since discovered that plastics bobbing in the ocean can pick up scents that marine birds have long associated with food sources. Albatrosses have a sharp sense of smell and will inadvertently gobble up a pen cap that smells like fish, for instance.

Qamar Schuyler, a scientist with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, has documented a similar phenomenon in sea turtles. In a blog written for Greenpeace last year, Schuyler said that during her time as a biologist at The University of Queensland, about 30 percent of the turtles she performed necropsies onhad plastic in their stomachs.

Actually, science says yes, we are. A recent study foundabout one-fourth of seafoodsampled from fish markets in California and Indonesia had plastic in their guts. While the link between fish entrails and our own stomachs isn’t fully understood (fish guts are usually removed before the fish reaches the dinner table), another study conducted among Europeans who ate large amounts of filter-feeding mussels and oysters found some humans consumeup to 11,000 microplastic pieces per year.

It’s unclear what all of this ingested plastic can do to human health. “Our understanding of the fate and toxicity of microplastics in humans constitutes a major knowledge gap,” the U.N. Environment Program noted in a 2016 report.

The Great Ocean Cleanup Fallacy

The vastness of the marine debris problem has prompted dozens of grand repair efforts.

“Unfortunately, cleaning up the garbage patches is pretty complicated,” NOAA wrote in a January blog. “Since the debris making them up is not only constantly mixing and moving, but also extremely small in size, removing this debris is very difficult.

Eriksen calls such talk the “ocean cleanup fallacy,” and said efforts should actually focus on industries that create all the single-use plastic in the first place, and the consumers who use it.

A recent report estimated that by 2050, there could bemore plastic in the ocean, by weight, than fish. Eriksen noted that scientists now say the Anthropocene ― the next geological epoch that will be defined by humanity’s impact ― will almost certainly be linked to the prevalence of plastic around the planet.